When a Gold Coast Tradie Realised Traffic Isn’t the Same as Leads
David Krauter tells the story over a flat white at a caf\u00e9 in Broadbeach. He'd been running a small digital agency for five years, and one morning a client walked in furious. "My site gets heaps of traffic," the client said, "but we're getting zero calls. What gives?"
The client was a Gold Coast plumber based in Southport with about 2,500 sessions a month. On paper it looked great: top-three rankings for "Gold Coast emergency plumber", Facebook reach was decent, and the site design was modern. Meanwhile, the phone on the wall barely rang.
As it turned out, that moment was the pivot for David. He stopped treating traffic as the end goal and started treating the website like a shopfront that either converts people into customers or simply looks pretty while the money walks out the door.
The Hidden Cause of Traffic Without Enquiries
Here’s the blunt truth: traffic is just raw demand. If the people arriving on your site aren’t ready to contact you, or if your site fails to make contacting you simple and convincing, traffic becomes noise. Most business owners don't see three critical issues:
- Wrong type of traffic: Many visitors are casual browsers, not buyers. Broken or confusing conversion paths: Calls-to-action are unclear, forms too long, or phone numbers buried. Trust and relevance gaps: Visitors don’t feel confident you can solve their problem right now.
Think of it like fishing. You can have a large net full of fish, but if the net has holes or the wrong mesh size, your catch won’t be what you want. That big net is website traffic; your conversion process is the mesh.
Traffic volume vs traffic intent
David often shows clients two numbers: sessions per month and estimated buyer intent percentage. A local trades site might get 2,500 sessions, but if only 2% have immediate intent to call a tradie, that’s 50 potential customers. If your conversion mechanics capture just 5% of those, that's 2-3 leads. Not enough to run a business.
Conversion rate math is easy to ignore until it stares you in the face. Fix the intent match and the conversion process, and those sessions suddenly become leads.
Why Common Fixes Don't Actually Fix It
Most owners follow the usual checklist: more SEO, more ads, new images, a nicer contact form. Those things sound useful and sometimes help. But they miss the problem's kernel. David points out three reasons these fixes fall short.
1. Cosmetic changes without alignment
Making the site prettier doesn’t change who’s visiting or why. If your Google Ads are targeting "emergency" but your landing page talks about "maintenance", the mismatch kills conversions. It’s like advertising a surfboard and selling sunscreen - related but not solving the visitor's immediate need.
2. Ignoring micro-conversions
People don't always call on their first visit. They might look for phone numbers, read testimonials, or check prices. If you only measure final-form submissions, you miss the micro-signals that tell you where people drop off: phone icon clicks, FAQ reads, or time on pricing page. Those micro-conversions are the breadcrumbs to the real fix.
3. Poor tracking gives false confidence
Another classic: analytics shows lots of traffic but no enquiries. Owners assume traffic is pointless. Meanwhile, the enquiry form might be broken, or calls are not being tracked because they're made by clicking a phone number on mobile. Without call tracking and UTM tags, you have blind spots. Fixing tracking often reveals enquiries you never knew about.
This led to David building a step-by-step inspection routine for every client, a checklist that starts with intent and ends with closing the sale.
How David Krauter Discovered the Real Fix for Conversion Failure
David's turning point came with the plumber from Southport. He ran the usual diagnostics and then did something most agencies skip: he sat with the owner while they took a simulated customer journey from a mobile phone, calling the business, filling forms, and timing how long it took to get an answer. The results were revealing.
- The click-to-call button was below the fold on mobile and required three taps to find. The "book now" form had five fields, including "how did you hear about us?" which distracted the caller. No visible testimonials on the landing page; the testimonials lived on a separate "about" page few visitors opened.
As it turned out, small friction points were the real culprit. David fixed those in a week and implemented simple tracking. The next month, calls jumped from one or two to 28. This led to a bigger revelation: you don't need to double traffic if you can double conversion rate.
The framework David uses
David's approach is practical, not flashy. He calls it the 3R check - Reach, Relevance, and Response.
Reach - Are we getting visitors who actually need our service now? Relevance - Does the landing page match the promise of the marketing channel? Response - Is it dead-simple to contact and are we measuring every contact method?That sequence forces you to stop chasing vanity metrics and focus on where conversion actually happens: in the moment a potential customer decides to trust you enough to pick up the phone.
From Zero Enquiries to 12 Leads a Week: A Gold Coast Case Study
Here's a real example from the Gold Coast. A small landscaping business in Surfers Paradise had 3,000 sessions a month, but only two enquiry forms submitted in 30 days. David audited their site and ran this program:
Step 1 - Match intent with landing pages
They had one generic homepage. David built three targeted landing pages: "Commercial Landscaping Gold Coast", "Retaining Walls Broadbeach", and "Emergency Storm Clean-Up Surfers Paradise". Each page had a clear headline that matched search queries and a single call-to-action - call now or Gold Coast online marketing solutions get a same-day quote.
Step 2 - Remove friction
Forms were shortened to name, phone, suburb, and service required. For mobile, a sticky call button and a one-tap booking widget were added. He also put prominent trust signals - recent projects with before-and-after photos and a Google Reviews snippet showing 4.8 stars from 42 reviews.
Step 3 - Measure everything
They installed call tracking numbers and event-based analytics. This picked up phone clicks, form fills, click-to-directions, and even clicks on the pricing PDF. With UTM tags on ads, they could see which channel delivered the most qualified calls.
Step 4 - Quick follow-up process
The business committed to answering calls within two rings and following up missed calls within 30 minutes. They used templated SMS responses for off-hours with an option to book a callback.
Result after six weeks: enquiries rose from 2 to 48 in the month. Average conversion rate from visits to enquiries climbed from 0.07% to 1.6%. The business tracked conversion value - average job value was $850 - so they saw revenue increase by roughly $38,000 that month attributable to those extra leads. Not bad for a few landing pages and a better phone script.
Numbers that make sense
Let's do the realistic math you can use for your business.
Those figures aren't fluff. They're simple arithmetic once you track properly and improve conversion steps.
What to Do If Your Site Gets Traffic but No Enquiries
Here’s a straight-talking checklist you can run through over a weekend. Think of it as tuning the shopfront so people who want to buy don’t walk past.
- Check intent: Look at search terms and ad keywords. Are they "buy now" or "what is"? Focus on high-intent keywords for paid campaigns. Match landing pages to channels: Ads must land on pages that repeat the ad promise. No surprises. Make phone calls easy: Put a one-tap call button on mobile, use click-to-call links, and track those clicks. Shorten forms: Four fields max for initial contact. Collect details later. Add trust signals: Google Reviews, recent jobs with locations, licences, and a clear refund or warranty policy if relevant. Measure micro-conversions: Use events to track clicks on phone numbers, directions, pricing, and FAQ reads. Follow up fast: Respond to missed calls within 30 minutes. Use SMS confirmations and booking links. Test one change at a time: Swap headlines, move CTAs, shorten forms. See what moves the metric.
Local detail matters
If you run a business in the Gold Coast, name suburbs. People search "plumber in Surfers Paradise" because they want someone local and fast. Mention suburbs, travel times, and local landmarks. Nothing beats the credibility of "We service Broadbeach - usually there within 60 minutes." That's the kind of detail that converts.
Final Word - Stop Chasing Traffic, Start Fixing Conversion
Plenty of business owners believe the magic answer is "more traffic". It's an easy belief because people measure what they can see. David Krauter learned that the hard way and now tells clients: treat traffic like raw material, not finished goods.
If your website gets traffic but no enquiries, don’t pour more fuel onto the fire. Spend a few days mapping the customer journey, fine-tuning landing pages to match intent, cutting friction from phone and form interactions, and setting up proper tracking so you can actually see what’s happening. This led to faster, measurable wins for his clients on the Gold Coast and will for yours too.
Want a quick audit you can do right now? Open your site on mobile, try to contact your business in 30 seconds, and note every distraction. If it takes longer than 30 seconds, you’ve got work to do. Fix the basics, track everything, and the enquiries will follow.